There's no homework quite like 'Love Poetry'
by Seren Flaidd
Summary: Dumbledore has asked his top set NEWTs students to produce a piece of Love Poetry. Severus and James both wait impatiently to read their (really bad) poems to Lily. This was originally written for SNAPOETRY.


**My Love Is Not Spread Thin**

**by Severus Snape**

**.**

**I fell in love with you, I did, beneath a blossom tree,**

**You were pretty, clean and sweet; and you were my Lily.**

**Your kindness thawed my frozen heart, you made the hurt I bare**

**An easy toll to reach that tree and find you lying there.**

**.**

**Who else has ever seen that shard, of goodness in my soul?**

**Or in their parting left my chest, an ugly gaping hole?**

**Where there was never warmth before, nor beauty in my face,**

**There was no wit upon my lip, nor have I wealth or grace.**

**.**

**For what you saw I love you more and I can't let you go.**

**All I ever had was you, that makes me love you so.**

**Alone I know I'm cold and cruel, and thus I'll gladly be,**

**If you are really fool enough, to choose him over me.**

** ~o0o~**

"Come, come, my splendid young NEWT's class!" Dumbledore clapped his hands with a shameless air of excitement. "Parchments out," he commanded, "I am rather intrigued."

Severus obediently unfolded his parchment, staring at the poem he'd written for their 'Love Poetry' assignment. He was determined to read it out, so that Lily would know how he felt.

He would read it.

He would read it, if only James Potter wasn't staring directly at him, eyebrows raised above his glasses, smirking.

Girls were supposed to love bad boys, not posh four-eyed swots. God, how Severus hated him. No doubt Potter would have written something base that had taken him all of four minutes and Lily would think that it was wonderful, because… because she didn't realise that she deserved better. She deserved someone who would love her so much that he'd die for her, a hundred times over.

He wished he was handsome. If he could only grow taller and make his hair look nicer, just something to make himself look better. There must be some spell to make his shoulders broad and his face... nicer. Not that Potters face was even nice. Potter had glasses, bad hair, and acne. He treated Lily like a joke. God, Severus hated him. Briefly he let his mind wander into a complex fantasy, involving polyjuice potion and hair belonging to the handsome Sirius Black. But as Black was Potter's best friend, that daydream rapidly got too complicated. Besides, the thought of Lily wanting to kiss Black (even if this Black was Severus in disguise and resulted in Potter furiously dumping Lily) was too depressing to contemplate. Black was tall and handsome, with lots of silky hair, which for some reason (either spells designed for girls or a Muggle hairdryer and many styling products) did not behave like Severus'... Or like Potters stupid unruly mess.

Why did Lily like him? It defied logic… Across the room Black was definitely trying to look brooding. At Potters side, with eyes off everyone, he was tapping fingers on his own sheet of homework in a way that was undoubtedly meant to look cool, but Severus thought made him look nervous.

The girls would probably think he looked 'aloof, yet vulnerable'.

Severus peered over at Lily, to check that she was thinking no such thing.

She was chewing her pencil and frowning at whatever she'd written, as if she was very unhappy with it. Severus hoped she was. Maybe trying to write poetry about Potter had made her see what an idiot he actually was.

Severus eyed up his own poem for a moment. He was inordinately proud of it. It was just the thought of reading it in class that turned his stomach; of Potter desperately poking fun at him, to make Lily laugh. He couldn't bear the thought of Lily laughing at the poem. Maybe he should just give it to her, catch her in private afterwards…

His thoughts were interrupted by a swish of the Headmasters wand and every parchment launched itself to the teacher's desk.

"Splendid," Dumbledore said, straightening them into a neat pile. "Because I am a kind old man and wish to spare your young blushes, we shall read each other's poems at random. No shouting out, please, even if you know who a piece is written by or for. We shall let that forever remain a mystery. Black, alphabetical order dictates that you are our first reader. Up out of your seat please..." The Headmaster paused a moment, studying each parchment before selecting one and sending it dancing to Black with a swish of his wand.

Sirius frowned, reading through it for a moment, before glancing at the headmaster and clearing his throat. He read quickly, lacking his usual attempts to get a laugh from his friends and with little respect for the parchments punctuation. Severus thanked God that the poem wasn't his one but listened none the less, wondering if perhaps this was Lily's.

_._

_I've never thought you were that pretty, compared to sunsets and vast open landscapes._

_I rarely find you that hilarious and __I can think of people who are fiercer, clever, funnier._

_Y__ou could do with more confidence, too._

_It's also hard to trust someone who lies so convincingly and with such ease._

_Did I mention you were bad at singing?_

_I'm probably cleverer than you and I am better looking too._

_I think you're pretty far from perfect. In fact I know you are, because I think about you all the time, with every free moment of every day. I think about you when I should be working and when I should be asleep. I think about you in ways that would make you blush and I think about you in quite pathetic and sappy ways too._

_Also, I watch you, when you are distracted and when you are sleeping, trying to memorise every tiny part of your face, your smile, and your soul._

_I don't think that you are perfect, because I know you much too well for that. I think you are imperfect and that you are better than anything I have ever known. I think you are the other half of my soul._

.

The entire OWL class was silent. At the front of the class Black folded the parchment up and thrust it quickly onto the teacher's desk.

"Splendidly lovely," Dumbledore assured him, eyes twinkling far too merrily. "Lovely clear reading voice, Black. Your thoughts, class?"

Lily's hand shot into the air at once. "It doesn't rhyme properly and he sounds like a stalker," she declared, getting a titter from McDonald and Mckinnon, sat either side of her.  
"Hmm. We think its a 'he', do we?" Dumbledore mused. "That's interesting."

Severus watched Lily's hand return to her lap, glad that that wasn't her poem for Potter.

"And a stalker," McDonald added quickly, "a repetitive stalker. And frankly, I wouldn't even be reading past that first line. 'I've never thought you were that pretty'? It would be straight in the fire."

The Headmaster smiled benignly at her, beckoning Lily up to the front of the class.

"Evans. Alphabetically you are clearly next, my dear." He floated a parchment over to her.

Lily stood in front of the blackboard, staring at the parchment for a moment. Severus wondered if she was looking at his poem about her; if maybe she would know it was his; maybe she was reading it in her head now, realising how much he loved her and that they should be together.

She probably had Potter's poem. Dumbledore could easily do that on purpose. Lily cleared her throat, looking up at the small NEWTs class for a moment. Her boyfriend coughed purposefully, probably wiggling his eyebrows at her, or something equally nauseating. Severus didn't turn to see.

"There are many types of love_," _Lily read, in her sweet familiar voice.

_"__There are many types of love._

_Poets vote 'romantic love' the best,_

_And mother-love comes top for all the rest._

_There is the innocent love, never sullied by desire_

_And unrequited love, burnt on its own pyre._

_Love is never a competition, to be lost or won,_

_It does not matter where you finish, only that you've run._

_Puppy-love or sustained to the last breathe,_

_Love is love, and love alone can truly conquer death."_

.

"…Beautiful, Miss Evans," Dumbledore said, clapping happily. "Beautifully _read _of course," he clarified, with a twinkle. "Your thoughts, class?"

"The poem was dull but I enjoyed the way she read it," Potter said, thrusting his hand lazily into the air and winking at Lily as she went back to her seat. "Even better than Black and his voice is _hot_."

"Splendid," Dumbledore said, as ever looking vaguely amused by the Gryffindor boy's grossness. "Lupin, you're up next."

He paused to shuffle the parchments before handing one to Lupin, which the werewolf took to the front of the class.

.

"You are more beautiful than sunsets in June.

As bright as the single star, hung by the moon.

Though I wish I did not love you, quite as such,

I never would defile you with my touch."

.

"Hmm." Dumbledore said, frowning at the werewolf thoughtfully.

Severus, who suspected and really, _really_ hoped that Lupin was reading his own poem, thoroughly liked the idea of the werewolf finding itself too disgusting to contemplate touching the girl of its dreams. Severus was in complete agreement over that idea and it cheered him up immensely, as he enjoyed listening to Lily's friends Macdonald and McKinnon reading rather silly poems that weren't his and almost certainly weren't Lily's 'Potter poem' either.

Pettigrew read some drivel that sounded like he'd copied most of it off Black's, much to his friend's obvious annoyance. Finally Potter himself stood up.

He'd been whispering constantly with Black, while Lily's friends had been reading. Neither boy even pretending to listen, or having the good manners to shut up, not that Dumbledore told them off of course. And Black shut up to listen to Potter read, perking up to grin at him.

"Lily You Are A_ce,_" Potter read brightly, pausing to wink at his girlfriend.

.

Lily, you are _ace_,

I'm glad to see you've learnt your _place_.

My side you _grace_.

A love sick smile upon your _face_."

.

"…How very romantic, Potter." Dumbledore said, drily.

"I was lucky enough to read my own poem," James explained with a toothy grin, "but I haven't yet finished, sir. I was merely pausing for 'romantic effect'."

"Then please do continue," Dumbledore chuckled. "Perhaps it grows more romantic in the second stanza?"

Potter grinned at him and cleared his throat dramatically.

.

Lily, your cheeks may be _red_

You said if I read this out in class, you'd hex me _dead_,

But these are things I cannot leave _unsaid_,

And you'll forgive me because I'm great in… all other aspects of my life.

.

"Lily, I have to read it out in _class_.

Although you may think it's just a _farce,_

It's really a chance that I couldn't let _pass_.

I want to tell you that you have a lovely… personality.

.

Lily, you and I have similar _wits._

You're exciting when you have your hissy _fits,_

Over my treatment of snivelling _gits._

But I get distracted by your bouncing… red hair.

.

"And that is quite enough of that charming poem, Mr Potter," Dumbledore assured him. "You may take your seat."

"My muse just wouldn't let me stop," Potter confided, laughed at Lily's genuinely mortified expression, and strutted back to his seat between laughing Black and Pettigrew.

As Dumbledore beckoned Severus to the front of the room, to read the last poem - his own, Lily also rose, cheeks scarlet with embarrassment and tears sparkling in her beautiful eyes.

Severus watched her slam furiously out of the classroom. "...You see," Potter sighed, "she really does distract me with her pert bouncy red hair."

"And her lovely 'personality'!" Pettigrew tittered.

.

Dragging himself away from the distant memory, Severus straightened up, lips thinning as his eyes ran over the skinny, defiant figure of the eleven year old Harry Potter. And who exactly is laughing now, James, he thought savagely.


End file.
